Tribeca Review: Lunacy

If
it was possible for collaboration between Luis Buñuel and Terry Gilliam the result might look something like Lunacy, the latest oddity from Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer.
This bizarre "horror film," as the director simply labels it, is a vile and depraved examination of mental
illness and the methods used to treat it. Wickedly funny and astonishingly conceived, the film is a nonstop cavalcade
of shocks, surprises and enchantments. I loved every minute of it, and I can honestly state that I won't see a more
brilliant picture at Tribeca this year.

Based loosely on writings by Edgar Allen Poe and inspired by the Marquis de Sade,Lunacy exists in a kind of overlap of present
and past, seemingly set in 19th century France but anachronistically punctuated with modern inclusions like automobiles
and bluejeans. It tells the ironically tragic story of Jean Berlot (Pavel
Liska), a troubled young man on his way home from his mother's funeral. During his stopover at a country inn, he
meets The Marquis (Jan Triska), a wealthy nobleman who invites Jan to
come and stay with him on his estate. There, Jan witnesses a blasphemous ritual and an eccentric form of therapy, which
The Marquis imagines may be helpful in the healing of Jan's own psychological ailments.

The men travel to a nearby asylum run by Dr. Murlloppe (Jaroslav
Dusek), who, apparently mad, himself, has a penchant for wearing fake mustaches. The hospital, which encourages its
patients' insanity and allows them to run about freely, is as ludicrous as the people residing there. Feathers fill the
air, whether from the numerous chickens wandering around or from the pillowcases being torn apart by the lunatics. The
atmosphere of the place is dreamlike, both fantastic and nightmarish.

Jan decides to commit himself after
falling in love with a nurse named Charlotte (Anna Geislerová),
who confesses to him that things at the asylum are not what they seem. He plans to rescue the woman and escape with
her, but eventually his own illness impedes his ability to succeed in his goal.

Svankmajer, a student of
surrealism and puppetry, sprinkles Lunacy with stop-motion interludes involving
meats and brains and eyeballs. Inserted between the film's scenes, the shorts make the story somewhat episodic, though
not negatively, and give something additional to look forward to, for those of us who are delighted by tongues animated
to appear as though they are copulating or crawling back inside the mouths of horse skulls.

Lunacy is a marvel of imagination and assemblage that must be seen to be completely
understood. It is a curiosity, a debauchery, a tribute and a satire. It is not a work of art because Svankmajer, in his
introduction of the film, says it is not. So, instead let me call it an ingenious, penetrating entertainment, one that
will first stun your senses and then will play on and on inside your numb, paralyzed brain.